World War Terminus
Symbol Analysis

Long before the plot of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? begins, humanity launched a horrible world war with itself, during which much of the planet was destroyed, presumably by some kind of nuclear holocaust. World War Terminus—a bloody, destructive, but ultimately mysterious conflict (nobody remembers why it started) symbolizes humans’ inexplicable tendency to destroy themselves and their environment for the sake of selfish desires.

World War Terminus Quotes in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

The Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? quotes below all refer to the symbol of World War Terminus. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

).
Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Ballantine Books edition of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? published in 1996.

Chapter 1
Quotes

As he started toward his car Barbour called after him hurriedly, "Um, I won't say anything to anybody here in the building." Pausing, Rick started to say thanks. But then something of the despair that Iran had been talking about tapped him on the shoulder and he said, "I don't know; maybe it doesn't make any difference." "But they'll look down on you. Not all of them, but some. You know how people are about not taking care of an animal; they consider it immoral and anti-empathic. I mean, technically it's not a crime like it was right after WWT. But the feeling's still there."

In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no country and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, strangely, the owls had died. At the time it had seemed almost funny, the fat, fluffy white birds lying here and there, in yards and on streets; coming out no earlier than twilight as they had while alive the owls escaped notice. Medieval plagues had manifested themselves in a similar way, in the form of many dead rats. This plague, however, had descended from above.